If you’re reading this, you’ve likely done one of two things:
Resisted the urge to jump to the comments and type YOU ASSHOLE! HOW DARE YOU SAY AN ARETHA FRANKLIN ALBUM SUCKS!! YOU KNOW WHAT YOUR PROBLEM IS? YOUR MAMA DIDN’T RAISE YOU RIGHT! YOUR MAMA GOT A WOODEN LEG WITH A KICKSTAND!!
Or
Want to type an all-caps screed like the one above, only you’ve decided to read on in the hopes of finding more ammo to indict me in the way that only a comments section on the Internet can do.
So, if you’re more B than A, that’s good, because context matters, especially in the case of the album The Legendary Queen of Soul.
The album in question is a compilation album released by Columbia Records in 1981, during a curious time in Aretha’s career. She continued to record and release new material throughout the 1970s, but by 1981, she had gone eight years without a top 10 pop single and hadn’t cracked the pop top 30 in five years. She was still cracking the Hot 100 and had some top 5 and number 1 hits on Billboard’s R&B chart, however.
Her public profile in white America got a boost thanks in large part to her cameo in the 1980 hit movie The Blues Brothers, and her song “Respect” getting lampooned in the movie Airplane!, which hit theaters that same summer. It also didn’t hurt that she was name-dropped in the Steely Dan top ten hit Hey Nineteen, which peaked in early 1981. She was still a few years away from her huge mid-eighties comeback that saw her score hits on her own, dueting with the Eurythmics, and topping the pop charts with George Michael.
So, what’s notable about this compilation album I’m writing about? Depending on how much of a music nerd you are, you might assume that Aretha debuted with the iconic songs that we all know and love. But it turns out that’s not the case. By the time she released such iconic tunes as “I Never Loved a Man (the Way I Loved You)” and “Respect,” she had already been a recording artist for seven years.
The songs that made Aretha the Queen of Soul were released in the late sixties and early seventies, and all for Atlantic Records. The double album The Legendary Queen of Soul compiles 20 songs from her seven years at Columbia Records. None of them are anthemic, like “Respect.” None of them are iconic, like “Chain of Fools.” None of them soar like “(You Make Me Feel Like) a Natural Woman.”
Aretha signed to Columbia Records about 1960, when she was still a teenager. She was discovered by legendary talent scout and producer John Hammond, who also worked with Billie Holiday, Bessie Smith, and Bob Dylan. And based on listening to this compilation of her Columbia years, her tenure there was marked by a throw-everything-against-the-wall-and-see-what-sticks mentality.
Listening to the songs on the album that were produced by Hammond gives the impression that as a producer, John Hammond largely failed Aretha. Three songs produced by him became top 10 hits on the R&B charts, but only one of them “Won’t Be Long,” is included on the compilation. That song comes the closest to a classic Aretha song, both in terms of her performance and the musical arrangement. But too often, the Hammond-produced tracks sound old-fashioned and out-of-date for the early 1960s. Take the song “Blue Holiday.” Listening to it, it seems as if Hammond is trying to make her into another Billie Holiday or Bessie Smith. It is worth noting that Hammond was in his early fifties when he was producing Aretha.
It’s also worth noting that these songs were recorded in the early 1960s. As an African American woman in that time, she had less power and respect from white America than her male cohorts. She wasn’t allowed to choose her own material, have input on any song’s arrangement, or, in most cases, accompany herself on the piano. She was a voice, a great voice, and she did what she was told.
An example of this is her cover of the Burt Bacharach-Hal David classic “Walk on By.” The song was a top 10 hit for Dionne Warwick, and in covering the song, Aretha is basically doing karaoke. Everything about the song smacks of buying the sheet music, handing it to the studio musicians, and playing it note-for-note while the tape rolls. It’s the total opposite of Issac Hayes’s classic version. There’s literally no reason for Aretha’s cover to exist. It’s a blatant attempt at a cash grab.
A major label like Columbia catered to a predominately white audience. This was still the era of “race records,” records recorded and released to mostly urban ghettos. Most black artists of the time recorded on independent labels (James Brown on King; Ray Charles on Atlantic; The Impressions on Chess; Motown). It’s really no surprise that Columbia was unable to make Aretha a star, let alone a cultural icon.
After working with Hammond produced middling results, Columbia then had her recording show tunes, none of which were included on the compilation. Even the album’s liner notes say thank goodness.
Speaking of the liner notes, they don’t exactly give off the impression that you purchased a treasure trove of underappreciated gems. The notes include such phrases as “… the fit isn’t quite right” in describing three blues ballads that are included. The notes also have such inspiring phrases as “Though the material can rarely be inspired …”, “… almost as good …,” and “All the pieces that seemed to explode out of her in those first few Atlantic albums are present.”
The liner notes are correct. You can hear it several times. Take “Every Little Bit Hurts.” In retrospect it hints at what’s to come, but the song’s arrangement never lets Aretha display her vocal power. In fact, none of the musical arrangements showcased on this record do her any favors. The arrangement on “You’ll Lose a Good Thing” is another good example.
The fourth and final side highlights her work with producer Clyde Otis, who seemed to be more in tune with the then-current sounds of mid-sixties soul. Songs like “Two Sides of Love” are fine. Indeed, “Cry Like a Baby” (not the Box Tops song) sounds like something that would’ve come out of Motown.
Does this album stink? Compared to albums like Lady Soul, yes. But in general? No. It’s fine. There isn’t a bad performance by Aretha anywhere on the compilation. It’s as if she was incapable of a bad performance. But this album is not essential. The public seemed to agree. It peaked at 209 on the album chart in 1981. It’s also not available on Apple Music.
The best way to summarize this album? Have you ever watched American Idol or The Voice and a contestant performs a song, thinks they did a good job, but the contestant gets deflated once the judges tell them that their performance was fine, but that they didn’t think the song was right for them? That’s this entire album. Good performances by Aretha, but none of the material was right for her. I didn’t bother listening to any of the studio albums from her Columbia years – all of which are available on Apple Music – but I feel comfortable in assuming that all that material fits the above description.
Keep in mind that Aretha had little to no say in anything she recorded with Columbia. It must have been liberating when she signed with Atlantic – a label that specialized in black R&B. Take her signature song, “Respect.” It’s an Otis Redding cover. But unlike “Walk on By,” Aretha not only chose to record the song, but made significant changes to it. She adds in the words for the background singers. She adds in the break where she spells the title. She played piano on the recording. She performs it with more intensity than Otis Redding did. Unlike many of the songs on the compilation, she sounds powerful when singing “Respect,” not meek. By making the song an almost long-distance writing collaboration with Redding, she added to the song and made it, arguably, the greatest and most socially significant cover song in American popular music history.
What does that have to do with the compilation I’m writing about? When one considers the timing of its release, the liner notes that must’ve made purchasers feel like they got gipped out of $7.95, or whatever a double-album cost in 1981. Combine this with the half-ass cover artwork that looks more 1961 than 1981, this album reeks of a cynical cash grab by Columbia. Sure, it was the first Aretha compilation released by the label since 1972’s In the Beginning: The World of Aretha Franklin 1960-1967 (which only peaked at number 160 on the album chart), but was it necessary? I’m assuming that her Columbia studio albums were either out of print or produced in low numbers. The public made it clear nine years earlier that they weren’t interested in her pre-Atlantic work. It’s easy to imagine a bunch of Columbia executives deciding to put out a compilation of stuff sitting in the company vaults, slap a stock photo and a typewriter font on it, and get a cheap product out to market. It doesn’t help that her biggest pop hit from her Columbia years, “Rock-a-Bye Your Baby with a Dixie Melody” (No. 37 in 1961) was excluded from the album, even though it was mentioned in the liner notes.
Do I regret getting this album? No. Do I regularly play it? Of course not. I have plenty of better options.
Do you regret skipping to the comments section to tear me a new one? Who I am kidding. Of course, you don’t. And if you haven’t yet, go ahead. Hit those comments, keyboard warrior. Show me some D-I-S-R-E-S-P-E-C-T.
For those who don’t know, I love The Monkees, and I mean love The Monkees. I was gifted a copy of their first album by an old friend, and before I knew it I was diving deep into their TV show, their movie Head, and just about every Monkees thing imaginable from during their original run as a band from 1966 to 1970. Eventually I even went and got a copy of Good Times, their 2016 reunion effort which brought together the then-surviving members of The Monkees for an album that arguably holds up incredibly well, even among their original albums.
The same can not be said of their other two “reunion” efforts, but only one is truly worthy of an THE ALBUMS THAT RUINED US feature, and that’s their 1987 reunion effort Pool It!. So why this particular effort as compared to their 1997 release Justus which featured all four members of the band for the first time in 30ish years but couldn’t really find the tunes to back up the hype? Why not Changes, the final album from their original run which saw The Monkees become a shell of their former selves to finish off a contractual obligation? Hell, why not the soundtrack to Head which would become their lowest-charting album until after Peter Tork left the group?
Well, before I can get into all of that I need to get into who The Monkees even were before they decided to come back 17 years later, and the shenanigans they got into (a little “monkeying around,” you see) in the meantime.
The Monkees didn’t really start off as a band, they started off as the center-points of a TV show that was based around a fictional band with the main cast being Micky Dolenz, Davy Jones, Peter Tork and Mike Nesmith. Yes, they did eventually become a real band, but it was only after the success of their TV show and a couple of records had been released, leading to a widespread demand for public concert appearances while simultaneously terrorizing the pop charts. Their first four records hit number 1 on the Billboard charts and not only did this lead to Mike Nesmith getting away with lying to the press in 1967 about The Monkees outselling The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, but this lie would go completely unchecked until 2017 when Nesmith told the story in his autobiography about lying to this reporter who printed the lie as fact. This is the sort of impact The Monkees had, and while they had a fair share of success they also got a lot of somewhat-unwarranted flack for a handful of things such as not playing their own instruments on their first two records (an issue that would be remedied on the 1967 effort Headquarters where they played and wrote their own music), and despite both the upfront honesty about how the sausage gets made and later attempts to “become a real band,” their reputation as a manufactured pop group is more-or-less solidified. Never mind that plenty of bands were doing the exact same thing in the 60s with groups like The Wrecking Crew, The Monkees would be the ones taking most of the ire and scorn from press and critics alike from that point on. Eventually the band falls apart piece by piece as Peter Tork leaves the group in 1968, Michael Nesmith leaves in 1970, and the group continues as a duo before putting out one final record, Changes with just Davy Jones and Micky Dolenz. That album is, at best, inessential, but it saw The Monkees go from being a manufactured pop group to fighting tooth and nail to be the real thing before eventually reverting back to the manufactured pop of their early records. It’s a sad career arc from a band who history would end up being particularly kind to and give a long-lasting legacy.
Due in part to TV reruns of The Monkees still giving the group some popularity even in their absence, Dolenz and Jones would eventually team up in 1976 with Tommy Boyce and Bobby Hart, two of the songwriters who wrote most of The Monkees’ early hits including “Last Train to Clarksville,”“I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone,”“Words,” and “Valleri” to do a reunion album under the name Dolenz, Jones, Boyce and Hart and they would market it as “the guys who wrote ’em and the guys who sang ’em.” This album is also somewhat inessential, and no one really talks about in the way they do with the other records, if only because it lacks the actual Monkees name despite being a de-facto Monkees reunion album. The group would eventually go their own separate ways after the album is released and a subsequent tour follows it.
The year is 1986 when MTV, then in its relative infancy, shows a Monkees marathon over a weekend in February. A few months later Peter, Micky, and Davy announce that they’re going out on the road to do a 20th anniversary tour celebrating The Monkees. Mike Nesmith is unfortunately not able to attend due to previous commitments with his video production company, though he does join the band on stage in 1986 for a two-song encore featuring his number “Listen To The Band.” It’s also worth noting that unlike his fellow band mates, Mike Nesmith isn’t in a financial bind like the others presumably are because when his mother, the inventor of liquid paper, passes away Mike receives a hefty inheritance from her which left him in a more-or-less financially secure place for the rest of his life. So Nez is out, but we still have the other three Monkees here! A month after the band gets back on the road a greatest hits collection is released which includes three new songs recorded by the group; “That Was Then, This Is Now,”“Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere,” and a cover of “Kicks,” originally by Paul Revere and The Raiders. They’re all pretty good, but they feel a bit too “80’s” and “synthetic” for my tastes, but that’s just me.
By this time The Monkees are singularly one of the hottest acts of the year going into 1987, and a certain special guest would open up for the group during this time but behind the scenes certain things are starting to unravel; Davy Jones refuses to be on stage when the group would sing any of the new recordings from the greatest hits comp because he wasn’t involved with it, and even outright said he would leave the tour if “Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere” would be released as a follow-up single to “That Was Then, This Is Now.” Elsewhere MTV starts to reject any further Monkees material because of what is reported to be a misunderstanding between the group and MTV over appearing on their Super Bowl special as Davy Jones was out of the country at the time. They try to angle it as “oh The Monkees are no longer popular like they were last year” despite the fact that the band had basically been riding a revival of Monkeemania and viewers had been flooding their request lines to see the new music video that acted as the lead-off single to what would be the first official Monkees album in 17 years. Keep in mind, this was back in the days where MTV still played music and had a major say in what was and wasn’t a “hit” so this became something of a slap in the face to a band who had helped build the network up and vice versa.
Alright, so if MTV won’t show the new music video then I will. Here’s the first single and the opening track off of their latest album Pool It! entitled “Heart and Soul.”
The music video is kind of funny, the whole concept of The Monkees having to adapt to the times because of how things changed since the 60s is some… well… some good clean fun. As for the song itself, this is closer to what I was hoping for from a reunion Monkees single; it’s very much the sort of song that fits in Micky’s wheelhouse as a singer, the production isn’t too obnoxious, and the synthesizers aren’t too “in your face,” though I guess my main complaint is that the guitars sound too small and thin for such a big song. I guess you could say that stranger things have happened, but let’s keep moving onward.
This song is called “(I’d Go The) Whole Wide World” and it’s a cover of a Wreckless Eric song from 1977. The original has a very 60s taste to it so it makes sense that The Monkees would want to take a stab at their own version of it, but what even is this? It feels like the arrangement and production are a total mess, the drum machine they’re using isn’t doing the song any favors, and with how much of a mess the production is I can barely hear much of anything outside the guitar, vocals, and drums. I’d think if you’re going to try and sound “vintage” like that then why not just fully commit? What does the band have to gain from trying to do these over-the-top 80’s-styled remakes of other songs?
“Long Way Home” comes after that particularly head-scratching inclusion and this time Davy Jones takes the lead vocal. All I can really say is that honestly I had to listen to this song by itself a handful of times because there’s absolutely nothing notable about it whatsoever, it’s a down-tempo 80’s ballad with that same ugly drum machine, the same synthetic sounds, and Davy’s voice hasn’t aged too much but it has gotten noticeably worse. You can kinda hear how he has to strain himself to hit the higher notes or to move into a different gear, energy-wise.
Up next is “Secret Heart” and the intro to it is kinda questionable, but honestly I think I kinda like this one. Those little funky guitar stabs and the saxophone solo work on this in more of a Hall & Oates way than not. Micky Dolenz’s voice is in top form, way better than the songs that came before it. It’s one of the better songs I’ve heard on here but I still can’t help but wonder why this sounds like The Monkees were more focused on getting play on The Weather Channel instead of on the radio.
Peter Tork writes and sings this next one, it’s called “Gettin’ In.” Peter Tork doing vocals on a Monkees album feels like a relatively novel concept because during the original run of the band he only sang on four songs; the goofy-as-fuck “Your Auntie Grizelda,” a few lines on a verse of “Shades of Gray,” a few lines again on a duet for “Words,” and on the Tork-penned composition “Long Title: Do I Have To Do This All Over Again.” On this song, Tork brings his best Wang Chung impression and honestly this one also works way better than I was expecting it to. At first I heard the opening synths and let out a big groan, but then they subside and when the vocals kick in it all comes together. I wouldn’t have suspected that Peter Tork would be the best one to show “The Monkees for a new era” but it wouldn’t be the weirdest thing to have happened. (Bonus beats: here’s a live clip of Tork performing the song. This is kind of rad as fuck, if I’m being honest.)
Davy Jones goes next with his own self-penned song “(I’ll) Love You Forever.” This is the sort of thing I was expecting Davy to come swinging out the gates with, honestly. Davy’s strong suits were always on those sweet gentle ballads and the fact that this is one he wrote himself shows that he knew his own strengths just as well as the next person. The synthesizers just work, the gentle nature of the track is on point, and it might be the closest we get to “60’s Monkees” on this album.
Alright, so at this point we’re about halfway through the record. So why are we going off in this direction? Why does the album sound like this exactly? As it turns out, according to the album’s producer Roger Béchirian the band specifically wanted to go in more of a “modern” direction much to his chagrin. You have to understand that Béchirian wasn’t just some Monkees fanboy, this was a man who produced for artists like Elvis Costello, Nick Lowe, and The Undertones. He was known for working primarily with garage rock bands and producing the sort of albums that would’ve been perfect for a Monkees comeback LP, and sure he did work with Wang Chung on their first album, but The Monkees were more likely to make their own “Cruel To Be Kind” than to make “Everybody Have Fun Tonight.” This change in direction along with a lot of the behind-the-scenes issues the group had stem directly towards Davy Jones and what he wanted Pool It! to sound like, so that’s why the album has those syrupy ballads, it’s why Tork doesn’t get much singing time on this record despite his one contribution so far standing out more than everything except “Heart and Soul,” and it’s a major part of why The Monkees were ultimately not built for the 80s. I get that Davy had a lot riding on this album though; he had a career in theater before The Monkees and was even featured doing a number from a then-recent theater gig on a very important episode of The Ed Sullivan Show. Why was it important? You can take a guess as to who else was in that episode. When The Monkees disbanded Davy didn’t really have the success he predicted he would have with a solo career, having only released two regular studio albums between 1970 and 1986, and outside a few appearances in a few movies and TV shows he basically fell off the face of the earth. With that said it wouldn’t have come as much of a surprise to find out that Davy had a lot banking on the Monkees reunion album and was trying to be the band quarterback in lieu of Mike Nesmith in his absence. I don’t normally like to speculate and point fingers in such a way, but make no mistake, all the research I did for this article point directly to Davy Jones as a major issue behind the scenes.
Davy also sounds like a problem on the opener to side b and second single from the album, “Every Step of the Way.” What the hell even is this?? This would’ve worked if they were committed to the 60’s aesthetic but instead we get this weird attempt at 80’s pop metal complete with another saxophone solo thrown in there. I think the saxophone is the only thing that doesn’t sound over-produced to hell and back and it’s the best part of the song. Davy’s vocals on this are also questionable at best, he sounds like he’s trying to force himself to have a little more gruff in his voice and that’s just not Davy Jones. Look, you are who you are guy, and yeah Davy has dipped his toes in the harder, punchier side of rock on previous Monkees tunes but he never had to force himself to sound like something that he clearly wasn’t. It’s a shame because underneath it all there really is something that could’ve been something with this song.
Micky takes the mic back on “Don’t Bring Me Down,” which was written by Mark Clarke and Ian Hunter. I only bring this up because when I checked to see who they were I audibly went, “wait, Ian Hunter is one of the guys from MOTT THE HOOPLE? Now there’s a band I haven’t thought about in a long time.” I digress, but this song is actually pretty good, underrated even, so I’ll give it a thumbs up. The aesthetic of the record as a whole works in this song’s favor and the horn synths that close it out don’t feel as obnoxious as some of the other synths I heard on the earlier tracks. I could’ve seen this working as a possible third single to the album or even as the follow-up to “Heart and Soul,” but I still assume that Davy wanted to have a single for himself instead so here we are.
Dolenz also sings on the next track, “Midnight.” Honestly I kinda like this one, I don’t normally think of “funk” when I think of The Monkees, but goddamn does this kinda rip. It helps that Micky has a knack for being able to blend in with whatever environment a backing track finds him being placed in. Honestly, he could’ve probably been given some lo-fi black metal track and he would absolutely crush it, but that’s the power of Micky Dolenz. A lot of people really like this song, too, at least if YouTube comments are anything to go off of. I guess my only criticism, and it’s nitpicky at that, is that the song goes on for a bit too long; it’s four-and-a-half minutes long but it could easily be half that time length and it would still work. Oh well, you can’t always get what you want I guess.
The next track is probably one of the more bizarre offerings I could show on any THE ALBUMS THAT RUINED US article. The Monkees have tried their hands at a lot of genres; pop-rock, funk, soul, country, showtunes, even stuff with Native chanting. On here they’ve tried new-wave, dance pop, 80’s adult contemporary ballads, but “She’s Movin’ In With Rico” takes on another genre previously unexplored; reggae. And god does this thing sound like ass. Davy Jones sounds like he’s trying his hardest to do this vaguely Jamaican accent while he recounts the tale of being dumped and heartbroken by his lover because, as the title suggests, she’s moving in with Rico instead. But we know nothing about this Rico character other than he’s “everybody’s hero.” This might be the worst Monkees track I’ve ever heard, and I’ve sat through all their studio albums. THAT should tell you a lot.
Peter Tork gets his second vocal contribution of the album with “Since You Went Away” and this is also a nice little song for Tork to sing. It’s on-par with the goofier side of the songs he would typically sing with The Monkees, and it shows especially at the end in the fade-out when he commits to being the silliest person in the room. Apparently this is a re-recording of a song he did with his post-Monkees band Peter Tork and The New Monks, and that version kinda kicks serious ass in a way the Pool It! version doesn’t, but that’s still an upgrade from B+ to an A, so congrats for having the highest batting average on this album, Peter, and may you rest in peace.
The album finally closes off with another soft ballad from Davy called “Counting On You.” This is the exact sort of arena-rock ballad I would’ve expected more of on this album, right down to the guitar solo coming about 3/4ths of the way through it. Davy didn’t write this one but the fact he sang some of these clunky lyrics though is not exactly working in his favor. Ultimately it’s not a bad song but it also feels like a fart of a nothing in the grand scheme of things.
Alright, the album’s done. It felt like such a slog to get through this thing, honestly. Is the album any good? Oh, far from it. A couple good songs on an album does not make for a good album, and unfortunately even with the couple of good songs on here we do not have a good album. I don’t even know what to say about this album other than oh god why does this even exist? I’m blown away that this even exists, I’m amazed that Peter Tork’s songs are some of the best on here, I’m shocked that Davy Jones had to drop so many stinkers you would’ve thought it was a rest stop bathroom, and I can’t believe Micky Dolenz does as well with the material as he does. I don’t think some of the songs on here are necessary at all, especially “(I’d Go The) Whole Wide World,” I don’t see much of a need for “Rico” either, and generally we’ve got an EP of good songs here at best.
I’m flabbergasted, but what did critics think of it? Believe it or not it was pretty hard to find contemporary reviews for it, but I did find one from the LA Times which told you all you needed to know when their opening blub reads “hey hey, it’s a letdown!”
Woof.
In modern-day reviews; AllMusic gave it a 1-and-a-half out of five star review and a fairly brutal takedown in the form of, “this is normally the part of a review where the reviewer would advise this release for die-hard fans only, but I can’t even suggest that, as no one should be subjected to such poor quality unless they’re a collector or completist — and even then it’s best to keep Pool It! in its original packing, if anything to increase the resale value.”
Woof.
Well what did audiences think of it? Pretty much every music review site that isn’t Amazon also shits on this thing pretty mercilessly as well. I did find this one tidbit from Monkees Live Almanac where they asked people what their top 2 favorite songs on the album were and these were the results they came to.
The real shock here is that “She’s Movin’ In With Rico” isn’t ranked dead last.
For someone who doesn’t like doing so, I’ve been making conclusions left and right about this album here, but I do have one theory as to why this album ultimately stalled The Monkees’ potential for a longer wave of success during their reunion stage, and it doesn’t have as much to do with the music as one may assume, but rather it’s got a lot to do with the cover art. Seriously, take a look at this thing again and really look at it for good measure.
When Monkeemania 2.0 kicked off it was because a new generation of kids had been introduced to The Monkees via the TV marathons and the older albums, so in a way their look was still permanently stuck in the 60s. With the cover to Pool It! they looked less like the hot guys you’d find out at the pool and instead they looked more like the creepy uncles you’d see poolside at the family BBQ, especially Davy Jones whose mullet does him no favors. It might sound a bit mean to pin it entirely on their looks, but some folks certainly do still judge an album by its cover, and the music inside doesn’t give it much of a fighting chance either.
The worst thing to consider is that The Monkees didn’t need to go the route they did, they could’ve gone back to the sounds of the 60s and fit right in with bands like The Bangles or R.E.M. who were making their bread and butter doing jangly alt-rock that was reminiscent of the era The Monkees came from. Roger Béchirian also publicly stated that if Peter Tork had more of a say in what went on the album Pool It! wouldn’t have been as weak of an album as it ended up being, but of course Davy Jones wanted to have more of a say in what went on what, and it’s a shame we may never fully get to hear what Tork could’ve brought to the table. The aftermath of this whole ordeal wasn’t brought upon by just the album alone, but it sure as shit culminated with it and it spelled disaster for Micky, Davy, and Peter. In short; they would continue to tour for a couple years after the fact but Monkeemania 2.0 was over the second that album went out onto shelves across the country.
Davy Jones passed in 2012, Peter Tork passed in 2019, and Mike Nesmith passed away in 2021, leaving Micky Dolenz as the last man standing. In the wake of their respective passings as well as watching fans go blue in the face trying to get the band nominated to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, history has become particularly kind to the pre-fab four. Their 1966-1970 run of albums as well as Good Times reminded folks that The Monkees were just that good and with more people embracing the commonplace knowledge of 60s bands using session musicians combined with their interesting story as a group there’s been something of a change in attitude regarding the band. In 2023 The Monkees legacy is secure, but 1987 was the year that The Monkees went for broke and it didn’t work out for them out of a desire to sound more “modern,” but Pool It! was far from the worst failure to come from Monkeemania 2.0. That honor goes to The New Monkees, but that’s a story for another day. Stay tuned.
This is Harvey VD reminding you to kick out the ROUGE! motherfuckers!! Peace.
(…P.S., here’s 1980s DC hardcore punk legends Minor Threat covering “I’m Not Your Steppin’ Stone” in case you wanted to hear covers coming from unlikely bands.)
Hey everybody, Harvey VD from the band ROUGE! here! We’re gonna try something a bit different on the blog and start adding some more variety to break up the monotonous flow of announcements and statements, so in the style of the TRAINWRECKORDS series that is produced by YouTuber and music critic Todd In The Shadows we’re gonna share our own stories about albums that maybe didn’t “kill” an artist’s career but definitely left a line of demarcation in them, alright? Alright? Cool. Let’s move on.
There’s a difference between “White Rappers (c)” and “white guys who rap.” “White Rappers (c)” tend to appropriate the style of rap for a demographic that doesn’t normally listen to rap because “all they talk about is sex, drugs, and violence” while listening to folks like Eric Clapton, 80s punk, or any given hair metal band, but in the end all you get is fairly cheesy pop music with some mediocre rhymes over them (see: Jack Harlow or early Mac Miller). They think it’s “real rap” or whatever but won’t listen to someone like Kendrick Lamar or A$AP Rocky because it’s “too ghetto” or whatever other racial codeword one could throw in.
Meanwhile “white guys who rap” are simply just rappers trying to make it in the genre while also acknowledging that they’ve got it a bit easier because of their race (think Beastie Boys post-License To Ill or late-period Mac Miller). They’re just focused on their craft and that’s really it, more or less.
Sometimes you get artists who teeter-totter between both categories (…dare I say Jimmy Pop from Bloodhound Gang?), sometimes you get artists who switch categories as their career progresses (see again: Mac Miller), and sometimes you get artists trying for one category while winding up in the other.
That last part is the story of one of those rappers, so buckle up because we’re in for a funky-ass ride.
The year is 2010.
A 30, soon to be 31 year-old rapper by the name of Yelawolf has released his major label debut project, a reworking of his Trunk Muzik mixtape (which he released earlier that year) and is now called Trunk Muzik 0-60. Across 46 minutes the album spans a wide variety of hip-hop subgenres and features a nice little list of artist cosigns including those of Atlanta rap legend Gucci Mane, Houston legend Bun B and Wu-Tang Clan member Raekwon. The project is released to some critical acclaim and he continues to build his profile by working with a wide variety of artists. A few different reviews that I could find name-check Eminem as a comparison and it’s not exactly hard to see why. Both rappers are, well, white, both came from rough backgrounds and both worked hard to get their way to their respective stations in life. Both rappers are also story-tellers; when Yelawolf raps about how he grew up in the rough parts of Gadsden, Alabama or raps about selling crystal meth out of a trailer park it strikes a few similar chords to a few different Marshall Mathers songs, and much like Eminem, Yelawolf has a fair share of songs that send chills up and down the spine.
Trunk Muzik 0-60 was released in November 2010, a solid 10 months after the original version was released and it helped build up a taste of Yelawolf to the general music-listening public. Between then and February 2011 there was more than just a little speculation (in part due to the comparisons laid out among many others) that Yelawolf was going to sign with Shady Records, the label run by Eminem, and sure enough in the March 2011 issue of XXL Magazine there’s Yelawolf alongside fellow Shady signees Slaughterhouse and the big man himself. A little while later that year, Yelawolf appeared alongside 10 other rappers for the XXL 2011 Freshman Class, an annual feature the magazine does to highlight up-and-coming rappers to watch out for. Featured in that year’s class alongside Yelawolf were a handful of other rappers who definitely made their mark in one way or another whom you may have heard of (Meek Mill, Big K.R.I.T., Mac Miller, YG, Lil B, and Kendrick Lamar). Though Kendrick Lamar had released Section.80 that year and was a year away from releasing his classic Good Kid, M.A.A.D City, Mac Miller released his first official studio album with Blue Slide Park and The BasedGod was always going to have a strong online following, there was a lot of particular hype for Yelawolf especially after being seen as a protege to Eminem, arguably one of the greatest rappers of all-time. What was this white guy who rapped that came from Alabama going to drop on the world and make his mark with?
We get the answer to that on August 8th, 2011 with the debut single from his upcoming project Radioactive, the name of the song is called “Hard White (Up In The Club)” and features a guest appearance by Lil Jon.
….wait, Lil Jon?
YEAHHH!
As it turns out, the guy who made the certifiable banger “Get Low” had been in the next phase of his career with a solo album in 2009 (appropriately titled Crunk Rock) was still getting himself onto plenty of tracks including another pairing-up with Yelawolf on a song for, I kid you not, a solo album that Travis Barker of Blink-182 fame put out in early 2011. But enough of that; it’s the summer of 2011, you’re following Yelawolf and trying to find out as much as you can about the guy, and this song comes out and is the first proper introduction for his new upcoming album.
Actually this is alright, I give it a thumbs-up. Having Yela’ over some more aggressive drum beats tends to work in his favor and this song especially highlights how he could work in the context of both poppier material alongside his business-as-usual rap flow. I kinda like that little vocal loop they use as well, honestly.
Alright, so the single drops in August and peaks at #17 on the bubbling-under hip-hop charts for Billboard, the music video for “Hard White” comes out in September, and in October the second and final single from the album comes out before the album comes out in a month.
The song is called “Let’s Roll” and features our good friend Rob Ritchie AKA Kid Rock on the hook. It’s a bit lighter and poppier than “Hard White” but is pretty much what I would still expect from a Yelawolf song; it’s got those rattling hi-hats and snappy 808 drums, fairly gentle piano and Kid Rock’s hook fits perfectly with the mood of the song. A pairing like Yelawolf and Kid Rock is more like what I would’ve expected as the lead single since it feels like an obvious pick and it gives that redneck hip-hop fusion a bit of a run for its money. Overall this song is perfectly fine. Again. Perfectly fine.
From what I could find “Let’s Roll” didn’t hit the charts either but it did manage to get a gold certification so maybe that’s not bad for a follow-up single, but the real question is how will the album as a whole sound? The two singles that were released for it don’t sound much like each other though they feature two good performances from our leading man on both songs.
Well, it’s now November 21st, 2011 and Radioactive is out in its entirety, so let’s listen to the album in its proper form. You go to the store and buy the CD, you pop it in your car and the first thing you hear is this…
Alright, that’s more what I was expecting from the guy who made “Get The Fuck Up” and horrorcore classic “Pop The Trunk.” It’s rightfully sparse and forces you to focus more on the actual rapping on display instead of the production behind him, and it’s a good way to open an album up (especially for an artist who knows a thing or two about opening up a project).
Up next is “Get Away” featuring guest appearances from Shawty Fatt and Mystikal. The beats on it are pretty and sparkling in part due to the sampling of “Strawberry Letter 23” by Brothers Johnson (which I’d recommend listening to anyway) and Shawty Fatt works over this as well. I’m still a bit fence on Mystikal’s contribution but I don’t hate it necessarily, it just feels so out of place compared to the other verses that came before it.
“Let’s Roll” and “Hard White” come after that, we know those songs since we already covered those, right? Right? Cool. Let’s move on.
“Growing Up In The Gutter” follows those two, and honestly it’s one of the stronger songs on the album. The buzzsaw synths used on the chorus along with Yela’s screams really act as a nice piece of dynamics alongside the quiter/gentler sounds of the verses. Lyrically Yela’s verse takes inspiration from “Children’s Story” by Slick Rick as he talks about a child who is abused by her father who also is picture as Lucifer himself. The mention of the “twin box spring” makes it clear where this child’s family is in terms of social/financial class which helps set the exposition of why outside the abuse life is such a nightmare for this child. The guest verse from Riitz features a chilling set of lyrics as well, but his vocal delivery feels a bit detached from Yela’s, who immerses you into what’s going on in the song. Here it just sounds like Riitz is kinda going “yeah is that fucked up or what?” A short film about the song came out in 2012 that’s equally as chilling as the song itself.
After that we get “Throw It Up” which features Three Six Mafia member Gangsta Boo and finally gives us the appearance of Eminem that we all basically knew was coming, right? The track is produced by Eminem alongside WLPWR, one of Yelawolf’s main producers and let me tell you, it absolutely sounds like Eminem’s fingerprints are all over the track with that little piano loop that is featured prominently throughout. The song is one of the strongest as everyone brings their A-game here including Eminem on what is definitely a reminder that he wasn’t as washed-up and over-the-hill as his “haters” would like you to believe.
So we’re six tracks into a fifteen track album, so far everything has been good, right? And it’s going to stay good, right?
Well, it was fun while it lasted, but allow me to introduce you to the point where this album goes fully off the rails and never fully recovers.
You see, at the end of “Throw It Up” we get something of a skit (which are rarely welcome on rap records in general, let alone on a rap record from 2011) where Yelawolf calls Eminem up after he records his verse, and the two share this exchange.
Eminem: Urm, yo, you know what I was thinking, man? I think the one thing that er… that the album don’t have that might be missing is like er… a song for, like, for girls
Yelawolf: Uh, what do you mean? For like bitches?
E: Nah, girls. Like a love song
Y: [awkward pause] No?!
E: We need one!
Y: Like—love song, love song?
E: Yeah, man, bitches like love songs!
In an interview with Complex Magazine where he talks about the making of the album, Yelawolf straight-up says this about the song “Good Girl,” and I quote;
I fucking did not want to do this record. I was totally against the song. All artists have one or two of these records in their career that they’ll record and be like, ‘I don’t know about this shit.’ Then their whole team will be like, ‘Dog, I’m telling you.’
-Yelawolf
and BOY DOES IT SOUND LIKE IT. His energy almost instantly drops when he’s rapping on here. Don’t get it twisted, the beat itself is nice but man, he sounds like someone put a gun to his head and told him he had to record this. The lyrics are so bad, the hook is so bad, and the song as a whole outside those beats is so bad. Unfortunately for him, he later goes on to mention in that article that Eminem really liked the song and so it wound up on the album. Yela specifically requested that skit at the end of “Throw It Up” to make it clear he didn’t want to do this but that he had to do to appease Eminem and the higher-ups at Shady Records. Not a good sign when you’ve gotta do something explaining “I didn’t want to do this but here we are” on an album.
Before we can get too much further into this I think it’s important to provide some background into Eminem in the year 2011 and the run-up to his part in Radioactive. After all, he’s the reason we’re even here so let’s talk about it.
In 2009 Eminem releases Relapse, his first album since 2004’s Encore. It’s the first record he’s made after fighting his battle with addiction and it pops up plenty on the album in many ways/shapes/forms, and even includes the return of his Slim Shady alter-ego. The album’s reviews are mixed to put it gently, and Eminem admitted that he wasn’t necessarily paying attention to what average listeners were and weren’t listening to these days so his next effort, 2010’s Recovery was released to slightly more favorable reviews but also featured songs like “Love The Way You Lie” which were way poppier than many of the other greatest hits of Marshall Mathers. But, “Love The Way You Lie” is a #1 hit and Eminem & co. are probably thinking they can get Yelawolf some radio hits with a similar formula, but one of the major differences between Eminem and Yelawolf is that Yelawolf at least knows this shit doesn’t work. Eminem’s vocals on those poppier songs he does don’t fit in with anything at all, it’s like trying to make a rose grow in concrete; sure we can appreciate the idea here but the execution leaves a lot to be desired. But again, it’s 2011 and Eminem is the one calling the shots so what he says is the bottom line.
It’s a shame, too, because of the fifteen songs on here there’s at least a solid six or seven tracks that all give off the vibe of “you have to follow the formula.” It comes out at you especially hard on songs like “Made In The USA” which features a Rhianna-like singer on the hook, the same can be said of “Write Your Name” which also features a Rhianna-like singer on the hook over gentle piano beats. There’s also “The Hardest Love Song In The World” which sounds like a fucking joke title that even the fucking Bloodhound Gang would’ve looked at and said “no.” The lyrics are far from “hard” too which makes the whole song feel even cheesier than it already is. It really gives off this whole “how d’ya do, fellow kids?” vibe and let me tell you, I don’t like it. Then there’s songs like “Radio” where there’s a message there in theory about the lack of quality content on the radio. Incidentally that song did not become a single but I guess he can find consolation in that there’s a lot of folks on YouTube who still really love this song 11 years later so good for him, I guess.
Alright, is there anything good on the back half of this record or do I just keep bitching about it?
Well, I like “Animal” and the hook that FeFe Dobson provides despite the dated dubstep production that came courtesy of Diplo. It’s one of the only times on the back half where Yelawolf sounds alive and energized. Yelawolf and FeFe ended up getting married in real life too so I guess it’s a nice bright spot on this album. I like “Everything I Love The Most” and that Billy Joel interpolation that’s being used on the hook as well as some of the lyrical content. If Yela was going to make a “love song” at the insistence of the higher-ups this would’ve been the perfect song to have as the obligatory “love song” because it’s not as obvious as the other songs that get thrown together on here. There’s also “Slumerican Shitizen” which features Travis Barker on drums and a pre-Run The Jewels Killer Mike doing a damn good verse about for-profit prisons. It’s also very much yee-haw as hell and when I went into this album I was expecting some more songs along the lines of that instead of what we got. It would’ve been possible to make stuff that didn’t feel so generic and cheesy, but instead we have almost half an album’s worth of tracks that I’d rather skip than keep listening to.
The album ends with a song appropriately titled “The Last Song,” and it’s a little closing ballad featuring beatbox drums and a piano while Yelawolf raps about his absent father and how he had to learn to be a man in spite of his dad not being around to teach him how to be one. Yelawolf is no stranger to heart-wrenching songs, he did it beautifully on Trunk Muzik 0-60 with “Love Is Not Enough,” where he puts his heart on his sleeve albeit from a somewhat angry perspective about a girl who left him for “some college graduate,” so it’s no surprise that this song is alright. However even with the lyrics talking about what I guess could be a happy ending, he’s big and famous now and he doesn’t need his dad, it still feels like a weird way to close the album off, but it also feels like the only way to close the album off. An album of mishmashing and compromise could only end with a ballad like that.
Alright, that’s the album in its entirety. What now?
The album was a relative chart success upon release; it peaked at #27 on the Billboard Top 200, #6 on the Top R&B/Hip-Hop Albums chart, and #4 on the Top Rap Albums chart while selling 41k its first week. As of now it’s sold upwards of 200k copies so it’s not a complete and total failure, right?
That was most of the positive reception to this album, overall a lot of critics were more brutal to it than I could’ve ever been. Popmatters and Sputnik Music deliver brutally honest takes, the former mentioning, “the end result is an album during which the main protagonist seems unaware of what’s going on, playing second fiddle to the ruminations of backseat A&Rs and misguided grasps at populism” while the latter laments “his album is simply a case of a young artist’s talent and vision being compromised by the wishes of his new bosses to make an album that can relate to the general public at every possible level, or something.” Independent simply says “it seems a huge effort being expended to achieve so little.” The AV Club points out much of the same, and that “for an uncomfortable seven-song stretch, the rapper seems so alienated from his own album” and I could not fully agree more. The most amazing thing though is that this album provided me with a Pitchfork review that I found myself agreeing with, which feels more likely than I would’ve initially thought, especially when they say “the worst part isn’t the songs themselves, but that the album didn’t have to go this route. Outside the sagging middle section, the subject matter and production will be nothing new to those familiar with Yela’s music; his voice and perspective remain sharp and unique, and he certainly hasn’t lost any of his technical skill. The guests (Mystikal, Killer Mike, Three 6 Mafia secret weapon Gangsta Boo) are also otherwise the type of people that should be on a Yelawolf album, rappers from whom he pulls his vocal style or sharp wit, or to whom his fans likely also listen. … This isn’t Yelawolf’s first foray into trying to make pop songs or songs for women, but it’s by far his worst.”
At the end of the day it’s easy to try and forget that those bad songs even exist, but they’re also a large part of why Yelawolf went on to crash and burn so hard. But what exactly happened that leads to him going that way? Well, after the album is released he says in so many words he made the record the label wanted him to make and not the one he wanted to make so he felt compromised by the label and didn’t want that happening again.
He also made a big deal about how his next proper album was going to be the sound of what he wanted Radioactive to sound like but in the meantime he gave us a handful of projects that range from interesting (the Travis Barker collab EP Psycho White), to just okay (the mixtape Trunk Muzik Returns which does in fact have some good stuff on it), to the out-right questionable (a collaborative EP with Ed Sheeran (????) called The Slumdon Bridge that was released right in 2012 when Sheeran was starting to put out his own records but a few years before he became a household name).
Depending on who you ask Radioactive was the moment Yelawolf’s career crashed and burned and then never fully recovered the way it could have. When he started he was simply a white guy who rapped in a way that drew comparisons to Eminem and whose lyrics paralleled living in trailer parks and hick-towns and living in ghettos and slums in a way that was thought-provoking and showed that we have a lot more in common than we all think, but with Radioactive Yelawolf was forced by Shady Records to become a White Rapper (c) chasing after pop hits, and that simply wasn’t him. After talking to a friend whom as long as I’ve known her has been a self-proclaimed Eminem Stan, she echoed a lot of the feelings I had about this record and how Eminem handled Yelawolf’s career in general; he was a rapper who had a lot of potential to be great but was pushed aside as another White Rapper (c) and never got his proper due. And it’s a fucking shame. At least now Eminem is in the “White Rapper (c)” phase of his career so it all evens out I guess.
Remember when I mentioned that Yela would say after Radioactive came out that he was going to make the records he wanted to make and not the ones he had to make? Well he did make good on that promise, and while Radioactive may have dealt a critical blow to his career, the story of how Love Story helped deliver the final fatal blow is best left for another time.
Cheers, and kick out the ROUGE! motherfuckers, Harvey VD of ROUGE!
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